


Christmas Sneak Peek

by whatdoyouthinkmyjobis



Series: Hunters on the Hellmouth [29]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Family, First Christmas, Fluff, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8982415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyouthinkmyjobis/pseuds/whatdoyouthinkmyjobis
Summary: Buffy and Dean have promised to not get each other Christmas presents this year, so what's in the box?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is an excerpt from an upcoming chapter that probably won’t be posted until February. I’ve removed anything spoilery. Have a wonderful holiday!

Pushing the cracked door open, Dean found Sam lying in bed reading one of the battered Goodwill paperbacks he kept stacked on his dresser.

“Can I grab one of your extra blankets? Dawn’s cold.”

“Sure, go ahead.” Sam’s girlfriend, Jada, was always freezing, and had filled his bedroom with what Dean estimated to be a hundred different blankets, each for a very specific temperature. 

Dawn, livid when her sister said she was spending Christmas Eve at their apartment, was nested on the Winchester’s couch staring at the small Christmas tree on the coffee table. “I still can’t believe you decorated,” she said, adding the purple fuzzy blanket to her pile.

The tree, small and squat with little red balls and enough light to speckle the walls with stars, was very pretty. “Jada decorated. She thought it would cheer us up.”

“I’m glad. I didn’t think I’d get a tree this year.”

“Don’t get your hopes up. Santa ain’t leavin’ any goodies under there.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. Buffy, an expert-level eye-roller, found this annoying and disrespectful, but he delighted in getting a rise out of her. “Dean, I’m sixteen. I don’t believe in Santa.”

“Got everything you need?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

Dean turned back to his room, already fantasizing about finding a naughty Mrs. Claus in his bed.

Dawn called after him, “Hey, thanks for letting me come! Buffy was just a big wall of no.”

“You’re family, kid. Why wouldn’t you be here for Christmas?”

A flush rose to her cheeks, and she pulled the blankets up to her shocked eyes.

Waiting on his bed was something better than a vixen in red lingerie. Buffy, with a smile on her lips and sleep creeping into her eyes, had made herself comfortable in his red plaid shirt and nothing else. By her side, was a green box topped with a white bow.

“That took longer than I thought,” she said.

“Your sister wanted another blanket.”

Buffy rolled her eyes but said nothing.

Crawling into bed beside her, he planted a quick kiss on her cheek. “You said no presents.” The phrase boyfriend test flashed in his mind, but she didn’t look at him like he’d failed.

“No presents. Not really. This isn’t for you to keep. I just thought bows were festive, and I sort of need the distraction.”

His lingerie dream revived, he unwrapped his not-present. “A book?” It was burgundy with a stamped gold trim.

Buffy removed it from the box as he leaned against his pillow pile. “I ask you to tell me stories all the time, so I thought I’d tell you some of mine.”

It was a photo album. On the first page, an orange-tinged Polaroid of a young woman with large, deep set eyes and blonde, deflated Farrah hair in a hospital holding a baby. Beneath it Baby Girl Jan 19, ‘81. “My parents fought over what to name me, but the hospital wouldn’t let them leave until they decided. Dad wanted Jennifer, but mom said I was too special to have the same name as every girl on the block. Mom got Buffy on my birth certificate while Dad was out celebrating.”

“Smart woman.”

“She was.” Buffy grinned. “She would have liked you.”

The idea that her mother would have liked him caught Dean off guard. With his heavy drinking, gambling, scars and tattoos, he didn’t think of himself as the take-home-to-mom type, but then, he’d never been there-in-the-morning guy before Buffy either.

The next few pages were a blur of a blonde baby, usually smiling, often in ruffle-butted tights. Dean secretly loved babies. They were innocent and joyful. The end of the world meant being hungry or needing a change. Suit their needs, and they’re laughing again. He tried to suppress the now familiar blonde-haired, green-eyed girl who met him in his dreams.

The baby gave way to a toddler. In every picture, she gazed at her father with complete adoration. Soon, little Buffy was ice skating and dancing. Blowing out birthday candles, heading off to school, and holding a baby sister. The Summers family went to Disneyland, had barbeques, and stuffed presents under the Christmas tree until it overflowed. Once the round-cheeked, homecoming queen version of the Buffy he knew appeared, the album ended.

“We, uh, moved to Sunnydale a little after that.” That’s when monsters became real.

“What do you think Buffy Anne Summers would be doing if she hadn’t moved to Sunnydale?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she sighed as she settled into his arms. “She’d be entering her last semester of college. Probably would have spent too much time partying. Sorority for sure. She’d probably be dating some popular guy because he was popular and everyone said they were cute together.”

“Doesn’t sound like you,” he said, knowing how much brushes with the supernatural changed a person.

“Popularity is a popular drug,” she said.

Burning down her high school’s gym had no doubt ousted her from her typical social circles. Much as Dean hated Buffy being tied to the Slayer until it killed her, he was grateful it had put her in his path.

“And what would Dean Winchester be doing out of Sunnydale?”

He rubbed her leg, not wanting to confess that had Cas never brought him here, he’d be drunk and scared in a no-tell motel trying to plan a Hail Mary against Heaven and Hell. “You know me, darlin’. I’m gonna be hunting evil sons a bitches wherever I am.”

“I guess you didn’t have a lot of time before.” Her voice trailed off. Any name for before too dark.

“I remember a few things,” Dean said. “I played t-ball. Dad coached. We lost every game. I was pretty obsessed with rocket ships and war games. Dad always made me the general and he was a sergeant.”

“Sounds tough,” she said through a smile.

“Tough as nails. I mean, I fell down, didn’t even cry until I got home.”

He opened his nightstand and pulled out a brown, leather book. Tucked under the journal’s jacket was Dean’s entire collection of family photos, creased and foxed from being touched so often.

“This is before the fire. I think Sammy was only a month old,” he said, holding up a small picture of four happy Winchesters in front of their blue house in Lawrence.

Buffy stared at the picture, hovering her fingers over Mary. “Your mom was very pretty.”

“Yeah, she was. Sweet woman. Total badass.”

“That’s your dad?” John smiled in the picture, his arms encircling Mary and Dean, nothing on his mind but family. “I think you take after your mom.”

He only had a few pictures from his childhood. Some with his mother. Some with his father. A couple with Bobby. All of them with Sam.

“Whatever happened to those pictures we took in San Francisco?” Buffy asked.

“They’re still on my phone.”

She blushed. “Not the sexy pictures. The other ones.”

The disposable camera was in his dresser, images of the two of them enjoying themselves still trapped inside. “I haven’t gotten them developed yet. It’s been a few years since that was a thing.”

“You should. We need more happy pictures.”


End file.
